Although Caius doesn’t get much screen time in the Twilight saga, the Volturi member still has a dark canon backstory that makes him stand out from the rest of the franchise's villainous roster. Almost every Twilight character has an in-depth canon backstory. The lore of author Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling teen romance saga runs deep, with many of the main character’s origin stories being left offscreen due to the limited run time of the Twilight movies.
Thanks to their truncated run time, the Twilight movie adaptations offer no answers for viewers hoping to know why Rosalie has no powers in the Twilight movies or who the Romanian coven is. However, The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide offers answers to many of these inquiries. One of many detailed character backstories that the companion book explains is that of the Volturi’s frequently forgotten third member, Caius.
The villainous coven member who gets the least screen time in the Twilight movie adaptations, Caius nonetheless has a compelling backstory to his name. Older than Aro and less heartbroken than the tragic Marcus, Caius is uncomplicated in his motivations. Becoming a vampire late in life but early in history, he is driven by hate and attempts to eradicate every threat he faces throughout his everlasting life. This makes Caius a useful tool for Aro as, although he has no powers (like former Volturi member Carlisle Cullen), he is obsessive and paranoid enough to wipe out werewolf tribes, immortal children, and rival vampire covens alike under the Volturi leader’s guidance.
Caius’s Vampire Beginnings
Born before Aro around 1300 BC, Caius also became a vampire before his eventual fellow Volturi member. Caius was atypically old when he was turned into a vampire at 40 and, unusually for the Twilight saga, little is known about the circumstances of his vampiric turn. What is clear from his canon backstory is that Caius soon met his mate, Athenodora, after being turned and remained with her for the rest of the Twilight saga. By the time Caius met the Volturi's founder, Aro’s dark Twilight backstory had already begun. A newborn vampire at the time, Aro had formed a coven with Marcus and was searching the world for powerful, ambitious vampires to his cause. Aro immediately saw potential in Caius’s boundless hate, and so Caius ed the Volturi coven along with Athenodora.
Caius’s Run-In With The Romanian Coven
Caius came to blows with the Romanian coven before he encountered Aro but carried this grudge into the Volturi, resulting in the group trying to wipe out the rival coven. Caius was terrified of the coven that almost killed him continuing to exist in the shadows and his paranoia and anger fueled this vicious attack, while Aro was more concerned with consolidating power and saw a convenient chance to wipe out the coven thanks to Caius’s rage. The Volturi successfully killed all but two of the Romanian coven, dethroning Twilight’s pre-Volturi villains and becoming the vampire world’s de facto leaders in the process. However, this wasn’t enough to sate Caius’s anger, which paired dangerously well with Aro’s boundless thirst for power.
Caius’s Werewolf Vendetta
Unfortunately for the werewolves of the world, Caius also had an almost-deadly encounter with a werewolf early in his vampire years and swore to wipe out the entire species as a result of this. Fortunately for the werewolves of Twilight, his quest never made it to Forks and its tribe of Quileute werewolves. However, this bloody rampage and its partial success did further convince Aro that Caius was a valuable ally in the Volturi coven. While the Twilight saga changed traditional vampire mythology by giving some vampires superpowers like Edward Cullen and Jasper Hale, Caius was not one of these lucky few. He was, however, driven by an intense fear of the unknown that made him all the more invaluable to Aro when immortal children became a concern for the Volturi.
Caius Hunts The Immortal Children
Never one to turn down a hunt, Caius spent the years before Twilight begins hunting the Immortal Children. Children turned into vampires at a young age and thus unable to control their abilities, the Immortal Children were seen as a threat to the Volturi’s reign and were ordered to be executed as a result. This allowed Aro to put Caius’s bloodlust and paranoia to use, and his status as a lethal lapdog remained Caius’s primary role throughout the Twilight saga’s action. Alec and Jane, Twilight's most under-utilized villains, also worked as enforcers for the Volturi at this time, but their role in torturing victims and guarding the coven’s was more active than Caius’s ive work.
Caius and Athenodora’s Tragic Love Story
Of course, even a villain driven entirely by rage, sadism, and paranoia needs a little psychological depth, which is why Caius has a tragic love story with his mate Athenodora. Unlike Marcus, though, Athenodora didn't end up killed by Aro because the Volturi leader feared his friend’s happiness would distract him from the group’s goals of dominating the vampire world. Instead, Caius was able to hold on to Athenodora and still lives with her in the Twilight saga. However, since Aro never itted that he was the one who killed Marcus’s mate (who was also Aro’s own sister), both Aro’s mate and Athenodora were condemned to spend the rest of their enteral lives in a gloried prison to avoid their assassination.
Perhaps because he knew these measures were unnecessary (since he was the one who killed Marcus’s mate, not an outsider), Aro did ensure that the Volturi’s Chelsea mind-controlled the two vampire mates into believing they were happy with this arrangement. Nonetheless, the house imprisonment suffered by Athenodora took a toll on Caius, who was unable to convince himself that an eternity hidden away from the world was worth any amount of political power. By the time the Twilight saga begins, Caius has begun to question whether Aro’s decision was really the right one for the Volturi or just another self-centered power ploy. However, while Marcus is despondent by Breaking Dawn Part II, Caius never entirely lets go of caring more about the Volturi’s strength than his and Athenodora’s happiness even by the end of the Twilight saga.
